


Round Robin

by stevieraebarnes



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Choose Your Own Adventure, Dick Grayson-centric, Jaydick-centric, Language, M/M, Margaret Atwood - Freeform, Metafiction, Observant Jason Todd, Sexual Content, Tim Drake Sighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 17:19:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17411051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stevieraebarnes/pseuds/stevieraebarnes
Summary: Dick Grayson attends the family charity gala at Wayne Manor.What happens next?If you want a happy ending, try A.





	Round Robin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Volavi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Volavi/gifts).



> Based on "Happy Endings" by Margaret Atwood.

Dick Grayson attends the family charity gala at Wayne Manor.  
What happens next?  
If you want a happy ending, try A. 

 

 **A**  
Jason Todd spies Dick Grayson along the edge of a large room filled with guests and waitstaff and no furniture. He moves towards the man, upon which they talk, laugh, and agree to leave the Manor together. They make their way to Jason’s safehouse and engage in beautiful, vigorous sex. After that night, they occasionally patrol the darkness together as Nightwing and Red Hood, but are more often in each other’s beds as Dick and Jay. They fight crime. They make love. Their friends and family tease them about their coupling. They say “I love you” to each other after an appropriate amount of time as per character. They are happy. Eventually Dick and Jason die, until they return to life, over and over again, in increasingly inventive ways. There is no end to this story. 

 

 **B**  
Jason Todd spies Dick Grayson at the Wayne gala engaged in conversation with Midnighter. Jason doesn’t know why Midnighter is at the gala, but he probably used one of his “doors” to get in. Midnighter puts a hand to Dick’s waist like he can steer him to enjoyment if Dick would just stop worrying about every injustice the world has to offer. M doesn’t take to concern -- he’s in it for the moment. As a person who was born on this earth without his permission, Midnighter intends to spend every second of his life any way he wants. Sometimes it’s playing nice with others. Sometimes it’s even saving the world. But right now, Midnighter uses his strong hand at Dick’s waist to pull him closer. From across the room Jason watches M stoop his head so that their faces almost touch. They smile at each other; knowing, shy smirks.  
Later, Midnighter gives Dick a lift to Dick’s apartment in Blüdhaven and fucks him senseless, his legs shaking from exertion. They are self aware enough to know this fling between them won’t last. Back at the gala, Jason hopes it won’t last.  
After months of meeting regularly, Midnighter realizes that as perfect as the man’s ass is, Dick Grayson isn’t the one for him. He makes his way back into the arms and the bed of Apollo.  
Jason teams up with Dick every now and then, and barely hopes for a life as described in A. When he catches Dick’s smile directed at him while they sit in companionable silence on patrol, his hope grows.

 

 **C**  
Slade Wilson, who is an older man, falls in love with Dick, and Dick, who is only twenty-something, sleeps with Slade because he is thrilling and dangerous. Dick doesn't love Slade, and is actually in love with several others -- most of them redheads -- but has a special place in his heart for Jason, also a young man who is not yet ready to admit to anyone something so nuanced as romantic feelings.  
Slade, however, has made his feelings known for Dick over several years. He loves Dick, wants Dick to be his partner, but of course Slade can’t give up his villainous ways no matter what Dick says. He works in the shadows, assassinating his targets in his familiar Deathstroke costume with unparalleled skill. But Slade knows that Dick isn’t impressed by him. Instead, he’s impressed by that man in the red helmet and leather jacket simply because the man died and came back to life with still-functioning brains.  
One day, Slade attends the charity gala hosted by Bruce Wayne at the Manor. He spots the baby Bats flitting around the large room that opens up to other large rooms, plus the balconies and the lawns and the porticos that befit an arrogant estate. He sees Midnighter sweep his eyes over Dick’s body from afar. Slade can’t fault the man for his taste, though he’s not sure how he feels about being categorized into Grayson’s questionable harem. The boy certainly has a type.  
Dick is standing with a young man who both seems to delight in and worry about the way that his body looms over Dick’s. Slade recognizes him as Jason Todd, the dead boy brought back to life to wear that insufferable helmet and jacket. The boy is also handsome, in a more rugged, chip-on-the-shoulder kind of way, with perfect swept-back hair and an enviable jawline. Slade watches Dick and Jason gravitate closer to one another, eyes locked together. Slade isn’t sure if he wants to kill one or both of them, fuck one or both of them, or any combination thereof.  
Eventually, Slade finds an opportunity to enjoy the boys as he wishes. They make the most beautiful sounds under Slade’s carefully crafted skills. 

 

 **D**  
Dick and Jason spy each other between the guests who crowd the room, but Tim gets to Dick first. He’s concerned about his brother and the amount of attention Dick is receiving from his own Rogue’s Gallery. Dick assures Tim that he’s alright, that he can handle himself, and appreciates Tim’s concern. He pulls his younger brother in for a hug, sweet at first, then bone-crushing in playfulness. A cocky man with red hair finds his way to Dick and Tim, and Dick breathes a sigh of relief at the sight of his old friend. Dick musses Tim’s hair and tells him he’ll be back in a bit. He drags his old friend Roy Harper out of the large room, away from Bruce Wayne’s guests and Dick Grayson’s dangerous liaisons and Jason Todd. They go up the grand, sweeping staircase to a quiet room with a door that locks. They say hi again, then make out for an hour, laughing into each other's mouths and trading hand jobs.  
At the gala, Tim finds Jason at the edge of the large room filled with people but not furniture. Jason asks Tim if Dick’s still upstairs with Harper and Tim nods. Jason understands the attraction and says so. Tim presses his mouth together in a tight seal. The gala carries on without Dick Grayson.  
Months later, Roy Harper finds himself conveniently in love with a woman, whose name is Jade and the two have a daughter, whose name is Lian. Everything continues as in A, except for different people and sometimes Roy or Jade is thrown in prison. 

 

 **E**  
Yes, but Roy is not the Roy you thought. Instead, he’s a clone and both Roys want the same happy ending, and only one of them can have it. They choose diverging paths, with one of the Roys making a life with Lian and Jade and even Dick. The other Roy teams up with Jason and Starfire and has many adventures with them. Later, Roy says goodbye to Jaybird and Kory and finds Wally in the end. Together they escape the bizarre, pantomime of a world the vigilantes find themselves in. It’s quiet and caring with just the two of them. Sometimes their friends check in on Roy and Wally by phone. The rumors of their deaths are greatly exaggerated. 

 

 **F**  
If all of this is too boring for you, then let’s make Dick a Talon and Jason a priest and we’ll write them a story of forbidden romance that will stretch twenty chapters and over a hundred thousand words. You still end up with A, but also with steampunk owl assassins and the breaking of holy vows in exchange for gorgeously detailed sexual escapades starring Jason’s thighs, Dick’s ass, and heaven found balls deep in an asshole.

And you probably know already, that in the end, there is no end, only a new beginning, a new chapter, a new issue. Most likely a new author as well. Dick and Jason live and die and live and die, and sometimes they love each other in between all the living and fighting and dying. But endings are boring and hardly exist in the extended realm of Dick and Jason; here’s to the stories of how they love, why they love. To paragraphs dedicated to the admiration of Dick’s timeless spirit or the revelation of Jason’s shining soul, and the myriad ways the two entwine just so.

Go ahead, dear reader, and pick a plot to enjoy. And, if today happens to be your birthday, then this author and many more wish you the happiest of days.

**Author's Note:**

> This work was born out of conspiracy in the jaybirb role channel on the joydick discord. Special thanks to crookedspoon for the amazing beta, and to luthienluinwe, idilco, ravenwolf36 and maliciouslycreative for the server, encouragement, ideas swapping, and readthrough. Also, cheers to Margaret Atwood, Dick Grayson, and especially Volavi for the ultimate inspiration. Happy Birthday! :)


End file.
